Thanks for the link from Mastodon. I probably would not have seen it from Medium. My feed is full of writers who I do not follow.
Your civics lesson is in line with what I have learned about American democracy over the years.
When I started working on the TDG in 1997, there were very few people who understood that the founding fathers had a disdain for political parties. More and more people are coming to this realization. Now we need to "get over" that it is impossible to have democratic governance without political parties.
Speaking of founding fathers, we need to get over the American myth that these "inventors of modern democracy" were such great thinkers. At the end of deliberations, they could give the vote to only about 5% of the population. The liberties they created were mostly for their own businesses and bank accounts. Americans really need to get over that their constitution was almost written by God Himself.
You mentioned the change of the party primary processes in 1972. While this change may sound all warm and fuzzy, we need to be asking: "Was the USA better governed after this change?"
You did not mention ranked-choice voting, which Maine and Alaska are experimenting with. I believe this change will eventually allow third parties to be viable contenders in American elections. The USA (and Canada) will be better governed with this change. However, I should re-emphasize that my goal is remove all political parties. But the RCV is attainable in the short term--not really requiring a constitutional reform.
I have already heard most of your suggestions, so these are not unique ideas.
The only real improvement that I see is the removal of the filibuster as a procedural tool. However, the bigger problem is that our legislatures are social engineering inventions from the 19th century. We are in the 21st century. The filibuster is only a minor improvement.
I have written about gerrymandering:
https://medium.com/politically-speaking/the-moot-point-of-gerrymandering-73f37ac0abc5
I live in a provincial constituency that has an oddball shape. I live in a federal constituency that has an oddball shape. I don't consider them a product of deliberate product of partisan gerrymandering. It is difficult to create constituencies where all the parts are connected to each other--and have the same population as the other constituencies. If the USA does move to rules that are more fair, it will face the challenges that Canada is having.
Expanding the House is easier said than done. For starters, a new building will have to be built. Herding 430 representatives through legislative processes is a big enough challenge. Can you imagine 1430 representatives? Have I already mentioned that today's democracies are working with 19th century tools?
I have bookmarked this article. I may write a more thorough refutation later--and turn it into a full Medium article.
You might be interested in my list of "What's Wrong with Democracy"
https://medium.com/tiered-democratic-governance/whats-wrong-with-democracy-3470ef8d8fff
The bottom line is that in 2016, the American system put someone like Donald Trump in the position of "viable contender for high public office". If that is not a sign of a broken system, I do not know what would be that sign.
